


All is calm...

by aljohnson



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Fluff, London, Reunion, Romance?, post 3x08, post episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 09:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8974582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aljohnson/pseuds/aljohnson
Summary: I remarked to someone a few months back that I hadn't actually written a 'Phrack reunion IN London' fic. This then, remedies that. A little piece of fluff, before I lose internet connection for Christmas...





	

**Author's Note:**

> (Also note that Book!Jack swears like a trooper. I've borrowed that for this, slightly...)

It was cold. Freezing fucking cold. He hadn’t been this cold since… he cast his mind back: the French winter of ’17. Well, the less remembered about what exactly he’d been doing then, the better. All behind him now… How the fuck did people live in conditions this cold? Placing his battered suitcase on the footpath besides him, Jack clapped his glove hands together. It didn’t help. I won’t even be able to hold her if I don’t sort out my bloody circulation, Jack ruminated, watching the house across the road. Women don’t like it when you have cold hands. Even women as utterly contrary as Phryne bloody Fisher. 

“BOOKING PASSAGE STOP ARRIVE ENGLAND LATE DECEMBER STOP” 

He had sent the telegram to her known hotel in Calcutta four days after she had left. It had taken two weeks for a reply to reach him.

“HOW THRILLING STOP”

And that had been it. Not another word from her in three months. Collins had taken to sneaking reports onto his desk whenever he left his office for a moment, fearful of dashing the hope he could see whenever post arrived or the telephone rang. Not that one could telephone from England, of course, but he somehow held hope nevertheless: that Mrs Collins, or Mr Butler, or even her aunt might telephone with some sort of update. 

She had made it to England, he knew that much: The Argus had reported on the fact some two days after she had arrived in a one-line report, and then followed it up with a longer piece some four weeks later. There had been no mention of her father. He hoped she hadn’t killed him in frustration and anger; there were many things he was prepared to overlook when it came to his relationship with Phryne, but even he couldn’t ignore patricide. 

When the ship had docked at Southampton he had eagerly scanned the quayside, hoping she might be there. She was not. Well, it was before mid-day, and he supposed that here she really was 'a society dilettante'. Not the time to be thinking of his ex-father-in-law, he reprimanded himself. Maybe she’d established her business here now? And was on a case? It wouldn’t surprise him. He hoped that Scotland Yard didn’t have a DI just like him; a little lonely; a little lost; and all too ready to fall under her spell. 

She hadn’t said not to come, he reassured himself. And he didn’t think that she would have remained quiet if she had been speaking in metaphors, or riddles. She was quite sure enough of herself to have sent a telegram telling him not to come at all. And there would have been time to cancel his arrangements. 

The last few weeks at work had been torture. Quite apart from Collins trying to avoid eye-contact, the other officers at the station were well aware of Jack’s impending leave. There was a Sergeant on the second floor who was quite sure that he’d never known the Inspector to take leave in all the time he had been at the station. Jack was fairly sure that there was a book being run on where he was going, how long for, and why. It was probably ruder than that, Jack thought, as he breathed out slowly and watched the cloud of his breath hanging in the early afternoon air. 

********************

“Is he still out there?” asked Phryne, reclining on a chaise in the library. She had poured two whiskeys already, and was wondering exactly how cold Jack would be by the time he plucked up the courage to cross the street.

“Yes Miss” her maid replied, carefully peering through the window, trying not to disturb the net curtains, as Miss Phryne had shown her. 

“Silly man.” Phryne sighed. She glanced at the clock on the mantel. He had been out there at least an hour; or at least, it was an hour ago that Angela, the maid, had mentioned that there was ‘a strange man standing out in the square Miss, looking right this way’. Honestly, if he didn’t find the nerve to put one foot in front of the other and walk the last fifty feet soon, she’d have to go and rescue him. And she was, uncharacteristically willing to allow him this moment of ‘surprise’. Really, he’d come this far, the last, tiny part of his journey couldn’t be worrying him this much? “Is he showing any signs of coming over?”

“None whatsoever Miss. Oh, he just blew on his hands. It’s ever so bitter out there Miss. And isn’t it always real hot in Australia?”

“It varies; Melbourne especially. But he must have known cold; he was on the Western Front, in the Great War. Well, I think he was. He’s never been entirely clear. Understandable, really.”

“My older brother served. He’s not the same as he was… Sorry, Miss, you don’t want to know about that…”

“None of us are the same as we were Angela. No need to apologise; it happened, and there’s nothing any of us can do now, other than keep on living.”

“Yes Miss.”

Phryne paced along the small rug in front of the crackling fire. “Oh for goodness sake! Angela, fetch my coat and scarf.”

*********************

He could do this; he’d come this far. Maybe he was imagining it, but he could swear he could see the net curtains twitching. It would be just like her to be watching him; waiting. Also; entirely not like her, he mused. Fuck, this was a terrible idea. He had no plans; nowhere to stay, not enough money for a hotel anywhere near here. He didn’t even have his return ticket booked. He could see now, as he was literally chilling to the bone, that this had been a terrible, terrible idea. 

Behind him, he heard a small noise, as if the wood of the bench he had been sat on earlier had been disturbed. He breathed in; he knew that scent. In slight confusion he furrowed his brow. The curtain in the window he had been watching visibly moved. 

Of course. 

Slowly, he turned, with no real expectation of being surprised by what he fully believed he was about to discover. 

“Miss Fisher.” He fears it comes out as a question; is astonished it sounds as controlled as it did.

“Inspector.” Phryne demurely adjusted the bottom of her jacket, covering her knee; she’s well aware that her knees distract him, and she’d very much like him not to be distracted right now. 

Jack sighed. “How long…?”

“Well my maid spotted you an hour ago. We were becoming concerned that hypothermia might set in if you stayed out here much longer. Were you planning on making a raid on the front door?”

“I was, thank you. I was just…” Jack gestured, emptily. He wasn’t sure what he had been doing. 

“Your ship docked some seven hours ago. Let’s say… an hour to get through customs… two hours to Waterloo, allowing for a wait at the station and a semi-fast train… no more than thirty minutes on the tube, although I will allow you longer, as you’re a novice. I presume you exited at Dover Street? Down Street’s hardly ever open. Terribly inconvenient. So what, Jack Robinson, have you been doing for the last four hours?”

“How do you know when my ship docked? You don’t know which ship I was on.”

“Of course I do Jack. Just because you don’t tell me something, doesn’t mean I don’t know it. I am a detective, after all.”

Wearily, Jack sat down next to Phryne. “I was trying to surprise you.”

“And you lost your bottle? At the last moment?” She turned towards him as he adjusted himself to face towards her.

“Something like that. I didn’t know…”

“How I’d feel? Oh Jack.” Phryne reached out her hand and rested it gently on Jack’s thigh. 

Jack swallowed. Her hand was so very warm. The light was failing now; the day had passed him by entirely. “You asked me to come after you…”

“I did…”

Jack’s gaze fell. The scarf she was wearing he had seen before. In point of fact, it was the scarf she had been wearing that morning at the airfield. The pin he had given her was still firmly fixed in place. He found his hand reaching out, and his fingers carefully tracing the outline of the bejewelled swallow. “This is familiar…”

“Yes…” Phryne carefully moved her hand, covering Jack’s fingers that were touching her scarf. “So, where were we?”

“Here, I believe…” Jack’s voice trailed off as his other hand found its way into Phryne’s hair, tugging her towards him gently.

Jack thanked every deity he could think off for arranging for Phryne’s London residence to be in what appeared to be an utterly deserted square. He continued to briefly be thankful that her aunt was on the other side of the globe, and that her father appeared to be nowhere in the vicinity, as he finally, once again, kissed Phryne. 

It was slow, and gentle, and thorough, and almost exactly how he remembered it from the airfield. Except it was colder. Reluctantly, he broke the kiss.

“Yes…” said Phryne.

“Would you like your birthday present?” Jack asked, with a presence of mind that astonished him.

Phryne’s eyes lit up. “You and a present! I thought you might be my present! Or do I get to unwrap you later?”

Jack coughed, turned away, and flicked open his suitcase. Taking care not to allow Phryne to peer inside, he carefully withdrew a flat, triangular shaped package, snapped the suitcase shut, and returned it to the ground next to him. “Now, if I had been slightly more prepared, I would have given you this as you left, but as it is, it’ll have to do for here.”

Phryne looked at him, taking the package from him when he offered it to her. She tore the paper off, and frowned as she saw a triangular shaped piece of card. It was unsealed across the longest edge and Phryne popped the card open, peering inside to discover her present. A bent, painted, wooden object fell out onto her lap. “A boomerang?” she said, laughing. 

“Exactly. I was trying for a whole ‘they always come back’ idea.”

“And they can do serious injury!”

“Oh good grief, I’ve armed you. What was I thinking?”

“Jack, it’s beautiful. Thank you.” She reached forwards and kissed him again. He was so cold; she needed to get him inside, by her fire, and warming himself up. “Come inside, Jack. There’s a whiskey with your name on it.”

As he stood up, Jack felt something damp hit his cheek. As he grabbed his suitcase, he looked up in confusion. 

“Snow!” exclaimed Phryne, a huge smile breaking across her face. 

Well, thought Jack; that explained the cold. “Should I expect a body to fall at our feet, Miss Fisher? I seem to recall that happening the last time there was similar weather.”

“Of course not Jack; you’re here already, and this time, I want you all to myself.”

As the snow fell, the remaining noise of London seemed to fall away; silenced by the freezing flakes. 

With his free hand, he reached out towards Phryne, who moved towards him. He wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed her once again. “Merry Christmas Eve-eve, Phryne.”

“Merry Christmas Eve-eve, Jack.” Phryne replied, as she took his hand and pulled him across the street.


End file.
